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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1402528" data-attributes="member: 15470">A mage, a drow, and a ranger...The least successful campaign I ever ran was the one where I did the least "railroading". The players wandered aimlessly, setting few goals for themselves, without feeling like they were part of anything "epic", and the game felt extremely stagnant. I changed my mind about how I wanted to run a world, and decided to go with the "carrot and a stick" method. The resultant campaign was wildly successful, and I wish I had detailed enough notes to Story Hour it. But, here's the set-up for the first day:The first-level mage, an apprentice, is sent on an errand to the next village over. He comes home from his errand to find his master murdered. Worse, as soon as he tells any of the town elders, he becomes the prime suspect!... The first-level drow, having escaped the Underdark, finds himself in unknown territory... and is being pursued by much higher-level drow assassins. They both find themselves wandering the woods in a snowstorm, fatiguing, etc, but are rescued by the first-level ranger, whose father/mentor ranger had died a year earlier, leaving him responsible for this valley... After a day or two recuperating at his cabin, the drow assassins arrive, burn the cabin, and the chase is on...The mage has a fear that he's next, and a strong desire to clear his name, to learn who killed his master and why, and to earn vengeance.. and thanks to a great player, decided his prime suspect was his new drow companion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The drow needs people who know the surface, and has no interest in remaining a sitting duck for his pursuers. The ranger has just lost his house, and has a strong interest in protecting this area from assassins, drow, arcane, or otherwise. Plenty of "sticks" driving the party from behind; as they negotiated their mad-cap flight from their enemies, real and imagined, I started offering the "carrots" and other plot hooks. It worked phenomenally!</blockquote>

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